About a year ago I stopped making regular updates to this blog to concentrate on my Namnesia Antidote blog. While that is an ongoing effort, I am starting what should be about a year long effort to revitalize the concept of a "This Day in History" blog. I have decided to leave this blog intact and as-is, using a new "This Day in History 2.0" blog for my expanded and full version. Please feel free to email with your ideas. The two tables below should allow you to find a posting for the "Day in History" you wish to research.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

August 8......

August 8 is the 220th (221st in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 145 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On Thought "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." — Albert Einstein

Stupidest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Bigotry, Chauvinism, & Theocracy "I knew my God was bigger than his [God]. I knew my God was a real God, and his was an idol." — William G. Boykin, U.S. Army Lieutenant General, in a speech to evangelical Christians describing his confrontation with a Muslim warlord

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day: On Politics "That low-down scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it." — unidentified Texas congressional candidate

Thought for the day: "Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow."

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

NASA ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY

Phoenix Rises Toward Mars

Credit: NASAClick picture to go to NASA APOD site for full explanation

EVENTS

● 1220 - Sweden was defeated by Estonian tribes in the Battle of Lihula.

● 1471 - Death of Thomas Kempis, 91, Dutch mystic and devotional author. Though most of his years were outwardly uneventful, his book "The Imitation of Christ" remains in print today, a guide to cultivating the inner human spirit.

● 1509 - The Emperor Krishnadeva Raya is crowned, marking the beginning of the regeneration of the Vijayanagara Empire.

● 1518 - German reformer Martin Luther wrote in a letter: 'The Lord will provide with the trial a way out.'

● 1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena, in the South Atlantic. The remainder of his life was spent there in exile.

● 1835 - Between 10 and 20 people killed in a clash between a Citizen's Militia and rioters protesting the collapse of the Bank of Maryland.

● 1843 - Natal (in South Africa) is made a British colony

● 1844 - The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon Church).

● 1845 - Birth of Thomas Koschat, Austrian sacred composer. One of his scores became the hymn tune POLAND, to which is commonly sung "The King of Love My Shepherd Is."

● 1852 - The roots of the Baptist General Conference were planted when Swedish immigrant pastor Gustaf Palmquist baptized his first three converts in the Mississippi River at Rock Island, Illinois. Today, the denomination numbers about 140,000.

● 1860 - Queen of Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) arrives in NYC

● 1863 - American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).

● 1863 - American Civil War: Tennessee's "military" Gov. Andrew Johnson freed his personal slaves. During the early 20th century, the day was celebrated by blacks in Tennessee as a holiday.

● 1864 - Red Cross is founded.

● 1866 - African-American explorer Matthew A. Henson was born. Henson, along with Robert Peary and their Eskimo guide, were the first people to reach the North Pole.

● 1868 - Quake destroys Arica Chile

● 1870 - The Republic of Ploieşti, a failed Radical-Liberal rising against Domnitor Carol of Romania.

● 1875 - Birth of Valdemar Amundsens, Danish pacifist theologian.

● 1876 - Thomas Edison received a patent for the mimeograph. The mimeograph was a "method of preparing autographic stencils for printing."

● 1880 - Birth of Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary leader.

● 1882 - Snow falls on Lake Michigan

● 1890 - Daughters of the American Revolution organizes

● 1896 - Marjorie Rawlings, the American author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book "The Yearling", was born.

● 1899 - The refrigerator was patented by A.T. Marshall.

● 1903 - Cripple Creek, Colo. miners' strike.

● 1908 - Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It's the Wright Brothers' first public flight and the French public goes wild.

● 1910 - The Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments in the Vatican issued the decree "Quam singulari," which recommended that children be permitted to receive Holy Communion as soon as they reached the "age of discretion" (i.e., about age 7).

● 1910 - The US Army installs the first tricycle landing gear on the Army's Wright Flyer.

● 1911 - Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435. The law would come into effect in 1913. {This number has remained constant ever since, thus with increase in population, an individual vote becomes worth less with each ensuing census.}

● 1911 - The millionth patent is filed in the United States Patent Office by Francis Holton for a tubeless vehicle tire.

● 1918 - 6 US soldiers are surrounded by Germans in France, Alvin York is given command & shoots 20 Germans & captures 132 more

● 1918 - World War I: Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous victories with a push through the German front lines.

● 1940 - The German Luftwaffe began a series of daylight air raids on Great Britain. This is considered the beginning of the Battle of Britain.

● 1942 - Quit India resolution was passed by the Bombay session of the AICC, which leads to the start of a civil disobedience movement across India and mass arrests by British rulers.

● 1942 - Six Nazi saboteurs were executed in Washington after conviction. Two others were cooperative and received life in prison.

● 1945 - The United Nations Charter was signed by U.S. President Truman.

● 1945 - USSR establishes a communist government in North Korea

● 1945 - World War II - The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria.

● 1946 - First flight of the Convair B-36.

● 1947 - Over objections of Tlingit Indians, the U.S. government agrees to timber sale from Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska. The Tongass, once a pristine wilderness, is now one of the most denuded regions on the north Pacific coast.

● 1947 - Pakistan's National Flag is approved.

● 1949 - Bhutan, land of the Dragon, became an independent monarchy

● 1950 - American Women for Peace demonstrate in Washington, D.C. for a ban on nuclear weapons.

● 1951 - Birth of Randy Shilts, gay San Francisco author and journalist whose groundbreaking books in the '80s exhaustively chronicled for the first time the spread of the AIDS epidemic and the Reagan Administration's deadly indifference to it.

● 1968 - Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach and chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.

● 1970 - Singer Bessie Smith finally gets a marker for her grave in Philadelphia, 33 years after her death. Janis Joplin purchased the marker for the grave, stating that Smith was one of her influences.

● 1970 - Thousands of Americans are denied entry into Canada for the Strawberry Fields Rock Festival in Mosport, Ontario, on the grounds that they "failed to produce adequate monies to support themselves." 8,000 Americans made it there.

● 1972 - Bill to limit the ownership of handguns defeated in the U.S. Senate, 83-7 margin. A compromise bill, suggesting merely that guns be registered, was then introduced; it lost by the more respectable margin of 78-11.

● 1973 - Kim Dae-Jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.

● 1973 - VP Spiro T Agnew branded as "damned lies" reports he took kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland. He vowed not to resign (Right!) {Like his boss, Tricky Dick, it is as true as "I'm not a crook."}

● 1974 - Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his resignation, effective the next day. {In the space of less than a year both President and Vice President gone in disgrace.}

● 1990 - Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.

● 1990 - Karen and Bill Bell join the Feminist Majority's national campaign against parental consent requirements for abortion. Their daughter, Becky, died September 16, 1988, from a massive infection due to a botched, illegal abortion. She was the first known U.S. teenage victim of parental-consent laws. She didn't want to disappoint her parents, and knew an Indiana judge would refuse permission under the state's parental consent law.

● 1991 - Collapse of Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built

● 1991 - John McCarthy, a British TV producer was released by his Lebanese kidnappers. He had been held captive for more than five years. A rival group abducted Jerome Leyraud in retaliation and threatened to kill him if any more hostages were released.

● 1991 - The slain bodies of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhriar and his chief of staff were found.

● 1991 - The U.N. Security Council approved North and South Korea for membership.

● 1992 - Dismantling of non-nuclear weapons begins, Russia.

● 1993 - Four U.S. soldiers were killed in Somalia when a land mine detonated underneath their vehicle.

● 1994 - Cesar Chavez is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, becoming the first Mexican-American ever to receive the honor.

● 1994 - First border crossing opened between Israel and Jordan.

● 1994 - Representatives from China and Taiwan signed a cooperation agreement.

● 1995 - Saddam Hussein's two eldest daughters, their husbands, and several senior army officers defected.

● 1997 - Eight arrested at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, during protest of the scheduled launch of the nuclear-payload space probe Cassini.

● 2000 - The submarine H.L. Hunley was raised from ocean bottom after 136 years. The sub had been lost during an attack on the U.S.S. Housatonic in 1864. The Hunley was the first submarine in history to sink a warship.

● Roman Catholic:● St. Altman● St. Cyriacus, martyr● St. Dominic de Guzman, priest, (1170-1221).● Sts. Eleutherius & Leonides● St. Ellidius● St. Emilian● St. Famianw● St. Gedeon● St. Hormisdas● St. Largus, martyr● St. Leobald● St. Marinus● St. Mummolus● St. Myron● St. Smaragdus and companions, martyrs● St. Ternatius● Bl. John Felton● Bl. Mary MacKillop

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for July 25 (Civil Date: August 8)● Dormition of the Righteous Anna, mother of the Most Holy Theotokos● Holy Women Olympias (Olympiada) the deaconess of Constantinople, and Virgin Eupraxia of Tabenna.● St. Macarius, abbot of Sheltovod and Unzha.● St. Christopher, abbot of Solvychegodsk (Vologda).● Martyrs Sanctus, Maturus, Attalus, and Blandina of Lyons.● Commemoration of the Holy 165 Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

No comments:

WELCOME

About Me

Life long Liberal. Actually saw JFK on campaign trail. Defining moment of my life was the assassination of JFK. First presidential election I participated in was knocking on doors for McGovern, have been tilting at windmills ever since.